AUTHOR'S BIOGRAPHY :

To contact Maria Finn about writing an article for your publication or to speak at an event, email mariafinn@msn.com

Maria Finn

Photo Credit : Micki Duisterhof

I attended the MFA in Creative Writing from Sarah Lawrence College. Upon graduating I taught in the English Department at Hunter College, CUNY for six years, where I had the opportunity to design and teach a study-abroad course in nonfiction at Casa de las Americas in Havana, Cuba. With grants, I produced the website The Crocodile: Letters from Cuba to publish my students' writing projects. http://www.centropr.org/exchange/cuba/. I'm currently on the English Department faculty at St. Francis College in Brooklyn Heights.

I compiled and edited Cuba in Mind, an anthology of essays, poems, novel excerpts and short stories in English on Cuba, published by Random House's Vintage imprint in June 2004. I also edited Mexico in Mind for Vintage, published in 2006. I've written a memoir on learning how to dance tango that is forthcoming on Algonquin Books.

My essays have been anthologized in The Best Food Writing 2006 and The Best Women's Travel Writing 2007. I've written for publications such as Audubon, Metropolis, The New York Times, Wilderness Magazine, The Chicago Tribune, The L.A. Times, Gastronomica, Saveur, Lexus Magazine, The Brooklyn Rail, The Chicago Review, The New York Sun, New Letters, Exquisite Corpse and The Anchorage Daily News, among others.

My essay on pigeon mumblers in Brooklyn was noted in The Best Science and Nature Writing Anthology, 2001. I regularly read my work at public venues, including KGB's and Here Performance Space, in Manhattan. For the book tour of Cuba in Mind, I presented the book at Barnes & Noble in Chelsea, Books & Books in Miami, Rainy Day Books in Kansas City and The Reader's Oasis in Tucson, and I was the guest of honor at the Rockhurst University Library Guild lunch in Kansas City.

I have been a finalist for many fiction awards, including the William Faulkner Pirate's Alley Award and the Iowa Writing Workshop short-story-collection competition. I have also been a commentator for Alaska Public Radio, a guest on the radio program Open Source and I am a commentator for the ABC News Now program Exclusiva, covering culture and news from Latin America and Hispanic communities in the United States

Prior to coming to New York City, I worked for several seasons as a crewmember on all-female commercial fishing boats and in remote field camps for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. During the winters, I traveled extensively in Latin America.